A quest to improve through slow chess

Tag Archives: Endgames

My second game was, for me, a beauty. As I approached this competition I was practicing my Scots Gambit and I was also trying to improve my rook endgames – this game gave me the opportunity to put into practice what I had been learning. The game was against someone I had drawn against at the last ‘Rookies Cup’ at Box Hill Chess Club, also with this opening. Here it is.

About once a week I play a game at Box Hill Chess Club with a 60min + 30s/move time limit. I lost my game and my opponent said that I should have played the ‘Smoking Indian’. Our game started with a Sicilian from me which transposed into a Morra gambit from him and I thought a ‘smoking indian’ was an obscure line that was associated with this opening. It wasn’t, instead it was a comment about the endgame. After their 34th move I should have just done nothing active according to my opponent. I should have been like one of those native americans on old cigar boxes sitting back and smoking my peace pipe and taking on a defence strategy. And after his 34th move things looked drawn and later computer analysis shows this to be drawn with a .59 advantage to white. So what went wrong? Here is the game.

[Event "Sunday Afternoon Swiss"]
[White "Them"]
[Black "Me"]
[Result "1-0"]
[FEN "6k1/7p/4r1p1/1p1r4/p2p1P2/P2R2PP/1PR5/7K w - - 1 34"]
34.Kg2 Re3 {my opponent felt that this move was a mistake &#8211; I wasn&#8217;t sure, I felt uncomfortable playing it but it turns out that this is what my engine recommends. The engine suggests though that instead of} 35.Rcd2 {my opponent should have taken my rook with 35.Rxd3 dxe3 36.Kf3} Rxd3 36.Rxd3 {here is where my strategy failed. Instead of waiting for his King to help I should have been actively looking to get his pawns with moves like Rc5 or Rh5 with a view to attacking his b2 or h3 pawns} Kf7 37.Kf3 Ke6 38.g4 h5 39.Ke4 {even here I have time for a counter pawn attack &#8211; eg Rd6 35.Rxd4 Rc6 36.Rb4 Rc5 37.Rd4 Rc2 38.Rb4 Rc5 but instead I played this distraction} hxg4 40.hxg4 {although it still leave time for me to seek out pawns with my rook but by playing} Kd6 {I lose.} 41.Rxd4 {forces me to swap rooks} Rxd4+ {and with his king in the centre I lose} 42.Kxd4 Kc6 43.Ke5 Kc5 44.f5 gxf5 45.gxf5 1-0

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So I’m not sure that the ‘Smoking Indian’ was the solution. Instead I should have understood that it was more important to let go of my central pawn and have an active rook that sought out counter play.

I have posted a few miniatures and some open King’s Gambit games so I thought it would be good, as we approach the World Championship, to post a long positional game between Viswanathan Anand and Anatoly Karpov.

{I faced &#8216;The English&#8217;} 1.c4 {at this Sunday&#8217;s weekly 1hr tournament. Being Scottish it&#8217;s not something I&#8217;ve looked at in any detail and so from the opening move I was out of my comfort zone. One strategy I use in these situations is to castle into a fianchettoed fortress and fight in the centre or on the queenside.} Nf6
2.g3 g6
3.Bg2 Bg7
4.Nc3 c5
5.e4 Nc6
6.Nge2 Ne5
7.d3 d6
8.O-O O-O {at this point I felt happy with the game. I had set up my fortress and I felt the position was equal! I also thought my pieces were fairly flexible}
9.Bg5 h6 {I was unsure about this move because of the saying &#8216;if you don&#8217;t know what move to make don&#8217;t move your pawn&#8217;. However I thought his bishop would be a nuisance given the pawn set up so I chose to offer a knight for it or make him retreat}
10.Bd2 {and here I blundered badly with} Bg4 {instead of Nxd3 and grabbing a free and very important pawn which should have led to a win}
11.Bc1 {he noticed it} Qd7
12.f3 Bh3
13.Nf4 Bxg2
14.Kxg2 {and at this point the game became a battle of knights. I wanted to get to d4 and noticed less that he would have wanted to get to d5. I was also uncomfortable with my knight on e5 because it didn&#8217;t have anywhere to go so} Nc6
15.Be3 e5 {a closed game where he grabs the outpost on}
16.Nfd5 {I felt I had lost the battle for the centre} a6 {a blunder by me but he missed 17.Nb6. He also missed 17.Nxf6 Bxf6 18.Bxh6}
17.Qd2 Qd8 {to prevent Nb6 or Nxf6}
18.Rab1 {I think the rook move was a mistake. Better to grab the pawn with 18.Bxh6 Bxh6 19.Qxh6} Kh7
19.Nxf6+ Qxf6
20.Nd5 Qd8 {I was happy for the position to have stabilised, it could have been much worse for me. I felt I was still on the back foot because of his outposted knight on d5 but there were no immediate threats}
21.f4 Ne7
22.b4 {and I was very happy to take his knight} Nxd5
23.cxd5 f5 {I felt it was important to fix his pawn on f4 to close of the b1-h6 diagonal}
24.bxc5 Qd7
25.Qb4 dxc5
26.Bxc5 Rf7 {white has a passed pawn and a one pawn advantage, his pieces are also more active but it was still close}
27.Bb6 {I don&#8217;t know why he moved his bishop here &#8211; possibly to fix my pawns. It gave me the chance to force a queen swap} Qb5 {to blunt his attack and give me some breathing space}
28.Qxb5 axb5
29.Rb2 {a mistake that allowed} exf4 {with my bishop attacking his rook}
30.Rxb5 {I take back with tempo} Rxa2+
31.Rf2 {again take with tempo} Rxf2+
32.Kxf2 {and again} fxg3+
33.hxg3 {and again! This goes back to my recent post about not losing a lost game}fxe4+
34.Ke3 exd3
35.Kxd3 Rf3+
36.Kc4 Rxg3 {the end of a miserable sequence for white yet despite this turning of the tide I still had problems. His pawn was well advanced and well supported. My b pawn on the other hand was very weak. How would I stop his pawn advance without losing a piece?}
37.Rb3 Rg4+
38.Kb5 Rg5
39.Rd3 Bf8
40.Bc7 Rf5 {(to allow more freedom for the rook)}
41.Kb6 Rf7 {The idea behind this rook move was if white took}
42.Kxb7 {then I could pin} Bd6 {his bishop}
43.Rc3 h5
44.Rc6 {I thought for a time about my next move and decided to sacrifice my bishop} h4
45.Rxd6 h3
46.Re6 g5
47.Kc6 Rf2 {I thought this was a fascinating position where I could regain my bishop but at what cost?}
48.Bg3 Rc2+
49.Kd6 Kg7 {I wanted to bring my king into play in case it was needed to stop whites pawn advance. My feeling now is that this isn&#8217;t active enough}
50.Ke7 Rc7+ {and BLAM. I was really enjoying the game and deeply hoping I could grab a win or force a draw when Blunderland descended on me}
51.Bxc7 1-0

I am copying a post I saw online which gives advice on how to tackle correspondence games. The quote is from jmpaul320 on Chess.com and I have made minor edits to reduce its length. I found it to be a very useful post:

Correspondence chess is a different flavor of chess than traditional OTB chess. To play it correctly, one must adopt a different approach.

Basic differences of CC:

Time – you have lots of it. Standard time control for rated server events on ICCF (international correspondence chess federation) is 10 moves in 50 days. (some events are 40 depending on if they are worldwide or region specific).

Known theory – you have access to all of it during a game. Master games, openings, endgame table bases.

Blunders – they rarely happen, unless your opponent is not playing CC correctly.

I will now share my personal method for playing CC. To do so you will need the following:

Chessbase – or some other access to a database of millions of master games. 365Chess.com is a good site. Chess.com has a very good game explorer for premium members as well. If you have the money, get chessbase and the “mega (6 million+) game database”… its worth it.

Books – Modern Chess openings, Nunn’s Chess openings. Also – other literature published on openings that you regularly use. Endgame books are also helpful. Full table bases of a number of endagmes are available online for free download – more on this later.

Access to your opponents games – you are going to want to create a database of every available game your opponent has played.

TIME – and lots of it. Games regularly last anywhere from 6 months to 3 years on ICCF.

Before I go into detail of my method for playing CC, let me just put this out there – 98-99% of people on chess.com do not play CC correctly. Most players either move too fast, or have way too many games going on to spend the correct amount of time analyzing. I have seen players rated 1650, 1750, and even 1850 drop pieces, blunder away pawns, and even move into checkmate. I played this way up until recently. Most of the games I lost were because of blunders, or mistakes I made because of a failure to take the time analyze correctly. When I changed the way I played and started taking more time, the quality of my games vastly improved. I am not saying the way I play CC is the best one, but I have seen good results over the last few months and have learned quite a bit in the process.

I’d like to pass my ideas along to anyone else who plays CC, or even has an interest in CC. Its a fun way to play chess, and an opportunity to improve.

Step One – Research your opponent

Simply put – you are going to want to have every single game your opponent has ever played.

You are going to want to know what types of openings/defenses/gambits your opponent regularly plays, as well as how they play. Do they play openings that favor positional games or tactical games? Do they like fancy gambits or offbeat lines? Look at the games they won – did they win because of a blunder or did they grind out a 75 move win from a slight advantage? Look at the games they lost as well. This is where chessbase comes in handy. You can download all your opponents games from iccf or chess.com and make a customized database just of that players games. Using the “prepare against white” or “prepare against black” options you can explore all of their games simultaneously like in game explorer on chess.com

If you are playing on iccf, cross-reference your opponent on chess.com etc to see if you can find more games.

It might sound weird, but check your opponents facebook, twitter etc. I did this for one iccf opponent and was pleasantly surprised when I found a blog that published all of his tournament and correspondence games. They were all available in pgn to download.

Step Two – Research the opening

After you have selected an opening as white, or a response/defense as black (based on your step one research). You are going to want to research the opening now as it unfolds too. I mostly rely on master games. What types of positions arise from the line or sideline you are considering? Are they ones that you are familiar with? Are they ones that your opponent has played before? Now is the time to study openings!!

Step Three – Take. Your. TIME.

Take your time when analyzing. This goes for any stage of the game, but doubly so for critical positions. Set up a chessboard to help you visualize. Take notes on your ideas. Try to come up with two or three candidate moves and analyze each. Look up master games with similar positions. Take breaks while it is still your move and come back later or even another day to look at the position again.

Take your time, and strive for perfection. You can and should always assume your opponent is doing the same.

How much time is enough? If its a forced reply – a few minutes. If its a critical position – hours… I regularly spend 2-3 hours on my games on iccf. Sometimes more. If your opponent makes a move that you did not consider and analyze that is not a downright mistake or inaccuracy – you are not spending enough time analyzing.

Step Four – The Endgame

Chess endgames have been studied extensively. Many endgame tables are available online for free (up to 6 men I believe) and can be downloaded and used in chess software that supports it. Thousands of endgame positions have been calculated as a win, loss, or draw working backwards sometimes hundreds of moves from checkmate. This is all known theory and is usually acceptable to use for correspondence play – just make sure and check the rules if you are playing on chess.com, iccf, to make sure its acceptable to use these table bases. EDIT – END GAME TABLES ARE NOT TO BE USED ON CHESS.COM

Most OTB chess endgame principals apply to correspondence… I won’t list them all as this is not a blog on the endgame

Never go into a King & pawn endgame unless you have a clear win calculated.

Never trade off material into an endgame that will favor your opponent. Keep your pieces on the board and fight!

Etc.

Step Five – Post game analysis

You should always analyze your completed games. With an engine if possible.

Hopefully this will be helpful for those interested in correspondence chess.